{"id":7208,"date":"2021-08-19T21:41:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T11:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7208"},"modified":"2021-08-19T22:07:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T12:07:52","slug":"some-thoughts-on-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/some-thoughts-on-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts on Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Some\nthoughts on Humility<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\nFr Antonios Kaldas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original\npost By Fr Antonios Kaldas blogsite, 26 Jul 2007<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Someone\nonce told me that trying to knock over the sin of pride is like trying to knock\nover a ball. If you push it over from any direction, it is still standing. I\nthink what that means is that pride is a very resistant sin indeed. So here are\na few recent thoughts on the subject\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nwe fall into other sins, it should make it easier to overcome the sin of pride.\nAfter all, what have I to be proud of when my weakness and disgrace is laid\nbare before my very eyes? Yet strangely, sometimes we don\u2019t see it that way.\nSometimes the pride is so resilient within us that we think something like:\n\u201cYeah, sure I messed up, but I\u2019m still better than so-and-so! He messed up much\nworse than me!\u201d Or perhaps: \u201cOk, so I made a mistake. I know I\u2019m not absolutely\nperfect, but I\u2019m still pretty close!\u201d Then of course, there\u2019s the old\nfavourite, Buck Passing: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t my fault I messed up \u2013 it was him\/her\/them.\nThey made<\/em> me\ndo it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nDesert Fathers often encourage us to always place our sins before our eyes.\nThis is not meant, I am sure, in the morbid way it is sometimes understood. It\nis not meant to \u2018beat us down\u2019 and make us feel miserable about ourselves. The\nDesert Fathers actually had a pretty healthy sense of self-esteem that could\nbear with this burden of sin, but their self-esteem was built on different\nfoundation to most of us. One of my favourite sayings is the Father who\ndescribed his spiritual battle thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever I become proud, I think of my sins and\nI say to myself, there, what have you to be proud of you awful sinner? And\nwhenever I fall into despair because of my sins, I say to myself, yes, but God\nstill still loves me!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\na beautifully balanced personality! His self-esteem does not come from the kind\nof things we use for self-esteem, like our abilities or achievements, the kind\nof job we do, the size of our house, the gadgets we own or comparing ourselves\nto others. This happy man builds his self esteem on something that he can never\nlose \u2013 the love of God for him. But there is an added benefit to this way of\nthinking: that is there can be no pride in this self-esteem. Think about it.\nCan he take any of the credit for being loved by God? God does not love him\nbecause he is saintly (God sees all his sins, hidden and manifest), nor will\nGod be impressed by his achievements or talents (where did he get them in the\nfirst place?). God doesn\u2019t care about the latest gadget, and He isn\u2019t impressed\nthat you are clever enough to get one. In fact, you can\u2019t impress God no matter\nhow you try. The only reason God will love you is because He is Love. And that\nmakes all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nisn\u2019t easy, learning to think like this. We find it so much more secure to\ncling to our little bag of self-admiration, and we constantly seek for new\nthings to boost our ego. It makes us feel better about life; there is no doubt\nof that. But in the long run, it is fighting a losing battle. A human being and\nhis\/her abilities is just too fragile a base to support our self-esteem for\nlong. Sooner or later, we will have to face up to the fact that we are faulty,\nmixed up and terribly fallible. And when that kind of self-esteem comes\ncrashing down, it\u2019s pretty ugly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nyou think about, it is a pretty wise investment in the future to start working\non this now. Better to begin transferring all my self-esteem stocks to the Bank\nof God, before the Bank of Me comes crashing down to earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Original blog found at- http:\/\/www.frantonios.org.au\/2007\/07\/26\/some-thoughts-on-humility\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some thoughts on Humility By Fr Antonios Kaldas Original post By Fr Antonios Kaldas blogsite, 26 Jul 2007 Someone once told me that trying to knock over the sin of pride is like trying to knock over a ball. If you push it over from any direction, it is still standing. I think what that … Continue reading “Some thoughts on Humility”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[202,82],"class_list":["post-7208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-pride","tag-humility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7210,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions\/7210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}